Diarrhoea breaks out as heatwave sweeps Bangladesh

DHAKA, May 7 (Reuters) Hospitals in Bangladesh are struggling to cope with a sudden rush of diarrhoeal patients, with hundreds of new sufferers arriving every day but no deaths so far, doctors said.

The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, in Dhaka admitted more than 400 patients, mostly children, on an average each day for the past week as temperatures hit 37 degrees Celsius in many parts of the country.

Most patients went home fully cured within two or three days, hospital officials said. No one had yet died from diarrhoea in the current outbreak.

Doctors said patients were treated with oral dehydration saline and medicines that, if applied quickly, prevented possible death.

The disease, caused by people eating rotten food and drinking polluted water, escalates during summer when drinking water is in short supply, forcing people to use contaminated sources.

''The number of diarrhoea patients admitted to hospitals across the country reached nearly 700 in the past 24 hours,'' one government health official said yesterday.

Weather officials said current temperatures were up to 7 Celsius higher than last summer. They said the heatwave would continue for a few more days.

Reuters LPB DB0937